


Leaves from the Vine

by Valmouth



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Anthem, Gen, Leaves from the vine, Song - Freeform, War, change
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-24
Updated: 2012-10-24
Packaged: 2017-11-16 23:12:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/544875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valmouth/pseuds/Valmouth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The song begins as a ballad, a wistful memory of home, sung by the soldiers on the front lines. By the time the war ends, the song has become an anthem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leaves from the Vine

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own no rights to the song referenced, or to the television show it hails from. I mean no offence by posting this and make no money from this.

The song begins as a ballad, a wistful memory of home, sung by the soldiers on the front lines.

It catches on, too. There is no mention of Fire Nation or Water Tribe, no Air Nomad or Earth Kingdom. All soldiers are people and they just want the war to end. They want to live. And in doing so, they carry with them the memories of those soldiers who don’t live any more. Those who will not go marching home.

The song shifts from fireside to fireside, from camp to camp, from town to town. It becomes a tradition to play this song upon a tsungi horn for the dead collected at the end of battle. There are times when the tsungi horn is not there- it is too large, too heavy; there is no room for it on a battle field- so the song can be played on a pipa or a flute.

There is a story amongst the Earth Kingdom soldiers, those who have seen the battle longest, that a heavily decimated Fire Nation squadron were camped by a river, barely surviving. And yet every night, a reed was cut and hollowed, holes bored, and the song was played to commemorate the day’s losses.

When the last of the firebenders lay dying, it was an Earth Kingdom drummer who cut the reed, who hollowed it and bored the holes, and who sat beside his body and played the song clumsily for him.

This is the story, though harder heads say that it is impossible.

The song still exists, however.

It creeps through the towns and cities, infiltrates the walls of Ba Sing Se, and it berths down on the ships that head back to the Fire Nation.

It lingers on the ports, in the salt air and smoke. It twines around the wounded who disembark. With the wounded, it spreads to the hospitals and training camps, to the barracks and bars and taverns.

And there is another story, this one true, that at sunset in the sailor’s dive beside the port, the old soldiers will rise to their unsteady feet, no matter how drunk or how dejected, and for one moment they will be the shining cadets who thought they could bring progress to the world. For one moment, they will remember the lies and the truth, dream and reality, and someone somehow will play the song that has come to exemplify this.

The soldiers who still serve scorn such traditions.

There is no time for memories, they snarl, not when the war is still happening. When Water Tribe savages still attack their ships and Earth benders still attack their colonies.

But when the battles are done, when the dead are burned, when the wounded are treated, these soldiers will find the song wrap its hand of stone around their hearts and squeeze. Cruelly.

It is hard to scorn that kind of emotion. They carry it with them. The song leaves it's mark.

It becomes a song of anger. A question. Why? Why must this be the way that things are?

It becomes a funeral march and a memory.

It becomes a plea for change.

By the time the war ends, the song has become an anthem.

 


End file.
